Discover how you can take frozen cooked shrimp and make delicious homemade fried shrimp with it in a cast iron Dutch oven. Coat the shrimp in a panko breadcrumb batter for the best crunch.
📋 What's New In This Post (4/10/25) - Added information about thermometers you can use to monitor the temperature of your frying oil.
✍🏻 Featured Comment - Kirsten says "First time frying any food, and this recipe was easy to follow! Now I have my confidence to fry food!!! Definitely recommend & will be making this recipe again!"
I Have Always Used Pre-Cooked
During my early days of learning to cook, one of the first things I wanted to make was fried shrimp. In college, I used to go to the local Sav-A-Lot and grab a bag of precooked shrimp. I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to use precooked shrimp to make fried shrimp.
But I made some excellent fried shrimp. I made it for my wife, for family, and for friends—and everyone loved it and raved about it. So when I eventually found out that you’re supposed to use raw shrimp, I just shrugged. What I was doing was not only easy to make, but also delicious—and way better than buying frozen, already-fried shrimp.
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- You don't have to peel or devein anything. I am not the most skilled person with my hands, so this doesn't appeal to me at all. Catch my pun?
- You don't have to be worried that the shrimp is not fully coked inside. There is no chance you're going to burn the outside before the inside is cooked. That takes the stress out of frying.
Pros of Cooked Shrimp
While most recipes are going to tell you to buy raw shrimp, I think there are two big pros to choosing precooked shrimp instead.
Ingredients
Let me give you the rundown of all the ingredients you are going to need.
- Cooked Shrimp - the 50-55 count bag (sometimes considered "medium"). The number on a bag of shrimp indicates how many shrimp you get per pound. The larger the shrimp the less you get per pound. The 50-55 count bag gives you the perfect size shrimp for deep frying
- All-purpose flour - The flour is used as the first layer.
- Eggs - Beaten eggs are added to the floured shrimp in order to help the breadcrumbs stick.
- Panko bread crumbs - Rather than relying on ordinary, traditional bread crumbs for fried shrimp, I prefer to use Panko, the Japanese-style bread crumb. Panko imparts a superior level of crispiness that conventional bread crumbs simply cannot match. I did side by side taste test once and all of my kids prefer the panko breaded shrimp. I have a blog post that goes over the Differences Between Panko and Regular Breadcrumbs.
- Kosher salt - I typically use kosher salt in my recipes but you can use whatever you have.
- Canola, vegetable, or peanut oil - Use which oil you want for deep frying. I wouldn't use the good, expensive extra virgin olive oil.
Tips for Breading Shrimp
For breading shrimp I employ a three step process
- Coat the shrimp in all-purpose flour
- Dust off excess flour, coat with beaten eggs
- Let egg drip off, and then drop into Panko breadcrumbs
Bonus Tip - You can use your hands to bread the shrimp, just make sure you use a different hand when dipping the shrimp into the egg or you will end up with a bunch of flour and breadcrumbs stuck to your hand. This is what Alton Brown refers to as "club hand"!
Tips for Frying the Shrimp
The best way to fry shrimp is to use a cast iron Dutch oven. Cast iron is great at staying hot, so it's a great choice for frying where you need to try to maintain the right temperature.
Here is a 30-second video you can watch on how I deep fry my shrimp.
I like using an infrared thermometer to get a quick readout of what the oil temperature is. Now the downside is that it's only getting the surface temperature, so it's not perfect but keeps your hands care away from that hot oil.
Since I created this video, I have changed to using The Smoke X from ThermoWorks. I have a clip that I put on the side of my Dutch oven and the readout will tell me what the exact temperature is. I love this model because it has a high and low temperature setting, so it can alert me if my oil is too low and if my oil is too high.
FAQ
How to Fry Cooked Shrimp with Panko
Equipment
- Cast Iron Dutch Oven
- Thermometer to track the oil temperature
Ingredients
- 1 pound cooked shrimp
- 1 - ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 3 egg beaten
- 2 cups Panko bread crumbs
- kosher salt to taste
- 1 quart canola, vegetable, or peanut oil for frying
Instructions
Thawing the Shrimp
- Place the bag of shrimp into cold water until thawed. Or if you are in a hurry put the shrimp into a colander and run cold water on the shrimp until it thaws completely.
- At this point I like to remove the tails so I am not wasting my breading on them but you can leave them if you wish.
Breading the Shrimp
- Next I place the flour, beaten egg, and Panko bread crumbs (w/cayenne to taste) into 3 separate containers. The shrimp is then placed, one at a time, into the flour, then the egg, and then into the Panko.
- Make sure you don’t drip egg into the Panko or soon you will have a bunch of small Panko balls.
Deep Frying
- Set your oven to it's lowest setting. This is to keep the fried shrimp warm while you are finishing them all up.
- Heat your oil to 350 degrees and slowly drop the shrimp in. Don't add too many as this can reduce the oil temperature.
- Cook for 1-2 minutes or until golden brown and delicious.
- Place the shrimp on plate with paper towel or on a rack on a sheet pan with newspaper or paper towel underneath. This is so you can wick away excess oil. Salt to taste
- Place the cooked shrimp into the oven to keep warm until you are done frying.
Linda
Awesome, I think I can handle this 😀 Thanks! Linda 😀
Jason Willis
Thank you so much for showing me properly frying shrimp my family love it.
Eric Samuelson
Awesome. Thanks Jason. I am glad it turned out well.
Kirsten S
First time frying any food, and this recipe was easy to follow! Now I have my confidence to fry food!!! Definitely recommend & will be making this recipe again!
Eric Samuelson
Glad this helped you gain your confidence with frying!
Alicia Campbell
Sounds even doable for me! I bought a bag of frozen shrimp ( figured shrimp cocktail), but none of the 7 ladies I take care of had any interest in anything other than fried shrimp. Thanks for saving the day😊
Eric Samuelson
You are welcome. I think this is a great recipe for those that have never fried their own shrimp.